


tell me your secrets (and ask me your questions)

by noblegambit



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Atlantis: The Lost Empire Fusion, Atlantis is Nabatea, Byleth is Kida, Edelgard's the "bad guy", Linhardt is Milo, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, fast burn, like the opposite of slow burn, sorry ya'll, tags to be added as i think of them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24626272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblegambit/pseuds/noblegambit
Summary: Caspar had been the one to approach him with the proposition in the first place. A chance to actually go and search for the lost city that Linhardt had dedicated his life to researching, he’d said, and it would all be paid for by some rich nobleman with an impossible amount of money, not to mention the long lost journal that was supposed to detail the only route left to the ancient underwater city.At Linhardt's wariness about the legitimacy about it all, Caspar had simply laughed. “Who doesn’t want to go searching for the lost civilization of Nabatea?”--Aka the Byhardt/Linleth Atlantis AU no one asked for
Relationships: Linhardt von Hevring/My Unit | Byleth, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17
Collections: BYHARDT WEEK 2020





	1. Lore

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't believe no one has written this AU yet; if you want something done right, I guess.
> 
> This first chapter is for Day 3 of Byhardt Week on Twitter, Alternate Universe. This is just the first chapter right now, I'm not sure when I'll get around to posting the rest.
> 
> This first chapter is just some lore/background, super short, the story picks up in Chapter 2. Fic title from The Scientist by Coldplay
> 
> I hope ya'll enjoy it ^^

It said that the people of Nabatea were peaceful people, worshipping their Goddess Sothis, who healed them with her words and granted them long life with her blood. She and her five chosen Saints, Macuil, Saint of Power; Indech, Saint of Wisdom; Cihol, Saint of Loyalty; Cethlean, Saint of Innocence; and the head of them all, Seiros, Saint of Devotion; governed the land of Nabatea with love and kindness.

This peace was disturbed, however, when citizens of the neighboring civilization Agartha grew envious of the Nabateans and sought to disrupt the peace. They had become too dependent on technology, and in time became greedy, arrogant, and imperialistic, challenging the Goddess herself for dominance. The battles that followed turned the ground beneath their feet as red as blood, as one by one the children of the goddess fell to the wrath of the Agarthans.

Her children nearly wiped out, and two of her saints dead, the goddess Sothis used the last of her divine power to encase the city of Nabatea within a magic field and plunge it beneath the waves. The Goddess Sothis, as a result of such an enormous discharge of power, fell into a deep sleep, though it is said her consciousness still reaches out to grant power to chosen individuals when it is necessary for the safety of her children.

As leader of the children of the goddess in Sothis’ absence, Seiros ordered Cihol to chart a course to the surface world, in the hopes that one day the children of the goddess would be able to return to the world without the threat of the Agarthans looming over them. Cihol did as he was told, but was forced to leave his daughter Cethlean behind, as she had been gravely injured in the final confrontation with the Agarthan’s most powerful warrior, Nemesis, and needed time to sleep and rest.

Left alone, Seiros worked to reestablish order in this new Nabatea, declaring herself leader until Sothis’ return.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We all know how the story begins...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un-beta'd, we die like Glenn.

Linhardt von Hevring is, above all else, a scholar. A man of knowledge. A man who has put his research above his personal relationships. A man who has, admittedly, stalked people for the sole purpose of determining whether they are interesting enough to approach about their participation in one of his experiments. This, also, has led to at least two restraining orders, which he feels is unfair.

Linhardt von Hevring is, above all else, a scholar. So why, on God’s green earth, is he here, on a submarine, preparing to go deeper into the ocean than anyone else has attempted before?

“Because Master Seteth is funding your research, and when else are you going to get a chance to go on an actual expedition instead of just sitting in your office all day making hypotheses that you’d never get the chance to test otherwise?”

Linhardt looks over to the bunk next to his, where Caspar is polishing a pair of brass knuckles. “Are you a mind reader as well as a brute?”

“Hey now,” Caspar playfully admonishes, wagging one of the knuckles in Linhardt’s direction. “I take offense to the brute thing. And no, you just talk aloud to yourself a lot.”

“And you should have learned by now not to listen.”

“You make it hard to ignore.”

Linhardt sits up from where he had been lying on his bunk, mumbling through a yawn, “Why are you so gung-ho this trip, anyway? It’s a city lost to the ocean for thousands of years, it is highly improbable that any living thing would be living down there. There’d be nothing for you to fight.”

“Maybe not, but maybe I’ll get to punch a shark. I don’t care, I just need an adventure, Linhardt! And  _ you  _ need to step outside your library for once.”

His childhood friend Caspar had been the one to approach him with the proposition in the first place. A chance to actually go and search for the lost city that Linhardt had dedicated his life to researching, he’d said, and it would all be paid for by some rich nobleman with an impossible amount of money.

At his wariness about the legitimacy about it all, Caspar simply laughed. “Who doesn’t want to go searching for the lost city of Nabatea?”

“Uh, me,” Linhardt said, shelving the book he’d been reading when Caspar had barged into his study. “Just thinking about the media attention after we do discover it already exhausts me, and—“

“Yeah, yeah,” Caspar waved a hand dismissively. “But wasn’t it also you who said that scholars that don’t risk their lives for the sake of their research are worthless?”

Caspar actually had a point with that. Ancient texts that mentioned Nabatea were few in number, and supposed Nabateaan texts he was able to roughly translate were even fewer. The hours spent studying the dead Nabatean language and deciphering its syllabary had only revealed snippets of history and lore. It was only a matter of time before he ran out of material, and only a matter of time after that until he inevitably became bored of the topic.

In the end, it was far easier to agree with Caspar than to argue with him. So that’s how Linhardt quit the lecturing job he only kept to pay the bills and found himself ushered to a large estate, three times the size of his father’s, in the company of Caspar and a handful of other mercenary types whose names he’s already forgotten. A few martial artists, some gun-toting fellows that put Linhardt on edge, and other experts of various fields relevant to an expedition.

The woman in charge of the expedition, however, he couldn’t soon forget. Edelgard, she went by, and though she looked barely a year older than Linhardt himself, she had an air about her that seemed dangerous. It certainly wasn’t helped by the man seemingly glued ot her side, his one visible green eye cold as ice as he surveyed their surroundings. Hubert was his name, and Linhardt had a feeling that they would not get along very well.

Master Seteth, the man funding the expedition, saw them off at the harbor. His hands tightened every so slightly on his cane, green hair a few shades brighter than Linhardt’s own whipping around his face as strong gusts of wind burst from the ocean waves. Linhardt had difficulty getting a read on the man. He was cordial when he explained the purpose of the mission, the rewards in store for each of them upon their return, but there was a hint of  _ something  _ that Linhardt couldn’t name even if you held a gun to his head. A pull in his gut, perhaps, a flicker of something in the back of his mind.

It didn’t help that Master Seteth had seemed taken aback when Caspar introduced Linhardt to him. He’d paused mid-sentence, the hand not gripping a cane half-extended for a handshake, as he looked at Linhardt with widened eyes. He came to himself so quickly however that Linhardt half-believed he’d imagined it. “Mr. von Hevring,” Master Seteth had said, his grip on Linahrdt’s hand firm. “How appropriate it is that you agreed to join this expedition.”

Linhardt didn’t have time to dwell on the man’s odd behavior, though. The moment Cihol’s Journal, a journal that had been mentioned time and time again in the scriptures Linhardt had translated, supposedly the only true way to find the lost civilization of Nabatea, had been dropped into his hands, there was nothing else in his mind. A lingering question (how did Master Seteth get his hands on this journal?) was reserved for later. The rest of the time given to them to get affairs in order was dedicated to deciphering the journal.

The journal that sits in his rucksack, right now, as the submarine finally submerges into the ocean. Linhardt watches the waterline rise up the glass dome of the flagship until the light of day is extinguished, feeling a mixture of dread and excitement for what’s to come.

“Mr. von Hevring?”

He turns, and sees Edelgard at the captain’s dais, hands on her hips as she levels him with a stare. “Must you be so formal? Just Linhardt is fine.”

“Must you be so lackadaisical, Mr. von Hevring? We are submerged and yet you still haven’t given us a course.” Hubert, ever at Edelgard’s side, speaks up. He crosses his arms over his chest, embracing his bodyguard persona even further. “Would you please be so kind as to present a heading?”

Linhardt exhales deeply and makes his way to the dais. The rest of the hired mercenary types are all gathered in a semi circle, arms crossed or otherwise generally restless. Caspar, from his position next to a guy with wavy orange hair that won’t stop giving bedroom eyes to the brown-haired woman on the other side of the circle, gives him a thumbs up.

“Uh, right.” As the designated Nabatea expert, it’s his job to guide the expedition party to the city itself. That’s his purpose on this journey. It’s the kind of responsibility Linhardt would never in a million years  _ ever _ assign himself, but he’ll do what it takes to reach Nabatea.

He pulls Cihol’s Journal from his knapsack and flips it open to one of the early entries, running a finger delicately down the worn pages. “We are searching for the lost civilization of Nabatea, inhabited in the past by a population of a few million known as the children of the goddess.”

“They  _ called  _ themselves ‘children of the goddess’?” pipes up Bedroom-Eyes-Guy. Linhardt is pretty sure his name starts with an S.

“There’s no other way to translate it,” Linhardt insists, irked at having been interrupted. 

“And how is it exactly that you were able to translate all of this?” says the orange-haired man at Edelgard’s other side. Linhardt knows this man to be called Ferdinand, but he only knows that because the man himself won’t stop saying his own damn name.

Linhardt’s eyes fall to a half-lidded look of exhaustion. “Am I going to waste my time and energy trying to explain it to you? Long story short,  most languages have patterns that still exist in languages we have today. So you research the region the language is found in and research the other languages that came before or after it. In this way, you can deduce the similarities and make out syllabary or logograms. After that it’s  looking for patterns, then it all just came together naturally and… ugh, yeah, this is exhausting. I’m going to stop talking now.”

Ferdinand doesn’t seem very happy with that answer, but it’s the only one he’s going to get.

“Please continue, Mr. von Hevring,” says Edelgard.

Linhardt huffs. “The children of the goddess worshipped their goddess, Sothis, and her five saints: Seiros, Cihol, Cethlean, Indech, and Macuil. The story goes that a sort of… anti-goddess faction, lead by the Agarthan representatives, rose up from within the government system and sought to destroy the city. The war between the saints and the faction grew so tumultuous that the goddess Sothis encased the majority of the city in some kind of energy field and sank it beneath the waves to protect her children from the Agarthans.”

“Fascinating history lesson,” Edelgard remarks. “But history will not get us to the lost city.”

“Context, Edelgard,” Linhardt drones, ignoring Hubert’s demands to address her properly. “The goddess, as a result of expending the incredible amount of energy necessary to sink an entire civilization, fell into a deep sleep. But before she did, she left a single passage to the city, supposedly protected by something called a Divine Beast. Now this drawing--” He holds up the journal so that everyone can see the drawing in question: a six-finned beast, nasty looking claws on each dorsal, and some kind of diagram concealing its face like a mask. “--is supposed to depict this supposed Divine Beast, but it’s likely just a statue or purposely-spread rumor to deter explorers.”

“No living thing could have lived that long anyway, right?” pipes up one of the other mercenaries, a purple-haired woman that looks like she was doing her best impression of a turtle, retreating back into herself with nervous eyes and shaking hands. “That thing looks really scary, I don’t wanna fight anything like that.”

“I said it was likely just a drawing or a statue,” Linhardt says, unable to hide the exasperation at having to repeat himself. “And I would have continued to say that the Divine Beast guards the entrance to a tunnel that leads to something of an air pocket in an underground cave system where the journal says Nabatea is concealed.”

The girl looks distraught. “You’re right, you said that, I’m so sorry for interrupting, that was rude, I’m just going to leave now--”

She gets stopped by the brown-haired woman with a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder. “Calm down, Bernie, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Bernie looks ready to cry.

“So I’m not gonna get to punch anything?” Caspar says with a pout.

“There may yet be a chance for that,” Edelgard says, bringing all eyes on her. She stands at the helm like an empress before her subjects, back straight and eyes hard and unwavering. “We don’t know what we’ll find down there. That’s enough briefing for now; Mr. von Hevring, please give the coordinates to the navigator so that we know where to release the mini-subs. Until then, dismissed.” 

The mercenaries dispersed, Edelgard retreating to her captain’s cabin with Hubert and Ferdinand in tow. Linhardt is left on the bridge, Cihol’s Journal in his hand and a sigh in his chest. He gives the recorded coordinates to the navigator as instructed, and finally retreats to the bunk room he shares with Caspar, Ferdinand, and Bedroom-Eyes-Guy, bunk labeled “Sylvain.”

The room is blessedly empty when he enters. He leans back against the scratchy pillows, the journal propped up against his knees and opened to the most recent page he had translated, the one about Sothis supposedly speaking to chosen people despite being in what Linhardt can only assume is some kind of catatonic state, if Sothis exists at all.

Linhardt never really considered himself religious; theology wasn’t usually his preferred area of study. From a historical perspective, however, and from its connection to Nabatea, every mention of Sothis and her saints’ power was absolutely fascinating. Certain individuals were inscribed with some kind of mark that granted random feats of strength or accuracy, potency of what the journal called magic but was likely just some kind of alchemy, moments of invulnerability. The limit was endless.

The more he reads of the journal, the more excited he gets. The hours drift by, lulled by the occasional rocking of the sub. He must have fallen asleep reading, because suddenly he’s bolting upright, nearly slamming his forehead against the underside of the top bunk. Sirens are blaring, red lights are flashing, and Edelgard’s voice is on the loudspeaker, calling for all hands on deck.

Linhardt stuffs the journal into his rucksack and reaches for the door handle, when suddenly the floor beneath him pitches. Linhardt yelps as he’s knocked off balance, grabbing onto bed rugs to keep himself from falling over.

“What the--?” he mutters, wrenching the door open once the sub regains its steady course. The floor still rocks, but Linhardt manages to successfully scramble his way to the bridge, where Edelgard is shouting orders, her retainers nowhere to be found. Below, crew members are shouting things, voices are blaring on loudspeakers, and put simply, it’s a scene of absolute chaos.

“What’s this all for?” Linhardt asks, coming up to stand beside Edelgard.

“Ah, Mr. von Hevring,” she says, voice clipped. She looks at him, lavender eyes bright with something other than stern coldness, and then redirects her gaze out towards the front porthole of the sub. “The good news is that we’ve reached the coordinates you set for us.”

The submarine rocks again. The navigation crew below scrambles to keep their instruments in check, shouting out random numbers and status conditions that make no sense to Linhardt. Except perhaps for “hull breach in the boiler room,” that sounds like it could be bad.

When the floor stops moving and Linhardt doesn’t feel like he’s going to throw up anymore, he clears his throat and is almost afraid to ask, “And the bad news?”

Edelgard gestures toward the porthole. It’s dark this deep in the ocean, even with the sub’s enormous headlamps. If he squints, though, Linhardt can detect movement beyond the rocky structures that make up this area, movement made by a creature much, much larger than a whale.

“The bad news,” Edelgard says, somehow sounding eager as the creature begins to circle around for another attack, “is that the Divine Beast guardian isn’t a statue.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Road to Nabatea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy, I watched the movie again and was struck with motivation to write more of this AU so here we go!
> 
> No beta, we die like Glenn

The Divine Beast is a lot bigger and a lot more intimidating than its drawing would suggest. Perhaps it was that Cihol was not a good artist, or simply that living for millennia in the dark abyss of the ocean leaves plenty of time for growth spurts.

Either way, the Guardian to Nabatea is far more than what their submarine is able to handle.

“Hubert! Status report!” Edelgard shouts into the radio.

“Not good,” Hubert’s voice crackles over the speaker, frantic shouting and rushing water in the background. “The main engine has been breached, it’s not going to to be able to support the sub for more than fifteen more minutes or so.”

Edelgard lets out a curse. “Our weapons aren’t able to break through that thing’s shields; as soon as we open up a breach, it attacks, and by the time we’re able to get weapons back online the shield is intact again.”

“Edelgard, we have to evacuate!”

Ferdinand’s voice rises from below them, his arm around Bernie as he supports her weight. She seems unconscious. Edelgard’s eyes flick from Ferdinand below to the approaching beast through the porthole. She curses again, and shoves past Linhardt with a curt “Get to the escape pods, and prepare for evacuation.”

Linhardt doesn’t need telling twice. He rushes down to meet Ferdinand, helping support Bernie’s weight as they scramble for the escape pods. Edelgard’s voice echoes over the loudspeaker, ordering the evacuation. It’s a frantic rush for the pods, crewmembers abandoning their posts with eagerness. Linhardt spots the occasional hired mercenary from earlier, his roommate Sylvain with his arm around one of the girls from the control deck, Caspar with Dorothea and Petra, Hubert doing his best to direct traffic.

There are a limited number of seats in the escape pods, so it makes for a tight fit, but soon Linhardt is crammed into a space with a half-dozen others or so. Ferdinand is steering the sub, so Linhardt takes control of keeping Bernie secure, holding her head as steady as he can while Ferdinand drives the sub deeper and away from the Divine Beast.

Linhardt cranes his neck to look out the window; another couple dozen subs just like theirs are speeding after them, doing their best to duck and weave around the rocky pillars and thrashing tentacles. The Divine Beast caught the submarine in its massive jaws, biting down hard enough to split the thing clean in two. The resulting explosion didn’t seem to phase it all that much, shaking off the debris and taking off after the escaping crew.

Linhardt’s heart pounds against the inside of his ribs, or maybe that’s the bruise he most certainly just got after being slammed into the side of the sub as Ferdinand wrenched the wheel just in time to avoid being crushed by sinking rock.

“Where are we going!?” someone’s voice shouts, struggling to be heard over the crackling radio that echoed similar concerns from other escape pods.

The Divine Beast roars, making the sonar instruments go haywire. Linhardt squeezes his eye shut, doing his best to tune out the yelling and roaring to picture in his minds eye the journal entry he had reviewed just that morning, the more specific instructions that detailed where to go once defeating (read: escaping) the guardian.

“Look for a crevice, or a trench, or something!” Linhardt shouts, patting at Ferdinand’s shoulder to get his attention. “There should be a trench that turns into the tunnel that leads toward the air pocket!”

“Got it!” Ferdinand relays the information through the radio toward the other subs, and a few moments later Caspar’s voice crackles to life with the directions. The beast is still roaring behind them, but its silhouette growing as it puts on one final burst of speed.

Ferdinand directs the minisub into the trench with the rest of the remaining crew, a significantly reduced number than what Linhardt had seen before. The monster is too large to fit into the crevice, it’s roars of anger and frustration fading into the far distance as they delve deeper into the waters. The headlights do little to illuminate the encroaching darkness, but thankfully the entrance to the tunnel they sought was easy to identify.

Clearly ancient manmade pillars held up a precariously perched collection of boulders covered in algae and coral. What once might have been writing was smoothed out to illegible scratchings, but the meaning was crystal clear: the entrance to Nabatea.

“Well done, Mr. von Hevring,” Edelgard’s voice says over the radio. “We’ve gotten this far, the time of mourning for lost souls must wait. For now, we push on.” One of the subs, the one with presumably Edelgard at the helm, moves to the front and is the first to pass beneath the archway. One by one the other subs follow, and the next phase of their journey begins.

The oxygen in the minisubs is nearing dangerously low levels by the time the tunnel begins to angle upward, and then the subs are breaching the surface of what could only be described as an underwater lake, seeing as they are still miles below sea level. But just as the journal described, the subs have reached an open air cave where scientifically, logically, geologically, it should not exist. More of the same ancient pillars line the area, illuminated by the torches Sylvain is passing around, leading to the far end of the lake where a rocky path continues deeper into the cavern.

Once all the people and supplies are unloaded from the minisubs, Linhardt makes a mental headcount. Of the couple hundred crew members aboard the sub, only a couple dozen now remained. Cars, a few drills, and a good number of rations survived the encounter, but just how much was yet to be inventoried. 

Edelgard paces near one of the drills, hands clasped tightly behind her back as she murmurs something to Hubert. Linhardt is too far away to hear; he’s currently bandaging Bernadetta’s upper arm with his admittedly limited medical knowledge from his stint in medical school. Her inner turmoil is palpable, however, and Linhardt has a hard time not watching her.

They have a minor ceremony for the lives lost in the beast encounter. Edelgard makes a speech, something about bravery and sacrifice, but Linhardt keeps his eyes trained on the candle floating out toward the middle of the lake. He doesn’t mourn, doesn’t have the energy to devote to people he didn’t know. Instead his mind wanders, toward Nabatea, toward the journal in his pack that he holds comfortingly with one hand, fingers absentmindedly tracing the binding. New. Seteth must have had the thing rebound.

“Mr. von Hevring,” Edelgard says once everyone has dispersed to set up camp for what everyone presumes to be night. It’s impossible to tell the time this far away from any source of natural light.

Linhardt looks up from the most comfortable rock he could find to sit on, Cihol’s Journal open in his lap as he scans the pages for further directions. “Hm?”

Edelgard sits next to him, kneels pulled up to her chest and eyes directed toward the blooming campsite. “How confident are you in this journal of yours?”

Linhardt marks the page and closes the book. “In all my years of research, this journal has been mentioned in every single source I have. If there’s one thing that will lead us to Nabatea, this journal is it.”

“How do you know it’s the real deal? It looks in awful good shape for something that’s thousands of years old.”

Linhardt sighs, the weight of a conversation he’s had millions of times before falling once again on his shoulders. “You’re a skeptic.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re one of those people that thinks Nabatea is a myth,” he clarifies. “That’s Sothis is just another myth next to Zeus or Amaterasu.”

Edelgard huffs a laugh. “And you believe in this supposed Goddess?”

Linhardt shrugs. “All mythology is rooted in truth. Sothis might actually have been a real person that the people saw as divine, but that doesn’t necessarily make her a truly ‘divine’ being. There was a lot of recorded seismic activity occurring in the years Nabatea vanished, it’s highly probable it was sunk due to some kind of eruption, like Pompeii, or an earthquake large enough that a civilization without modern science would consider--”

“Okay, I get it,” Edelgard interrupts, cutting off Linhardt’s blathering. His jaw snaps shut, a barely-there stab of sadness leaking into his chest. He did it again. Went off on one of his rants about something that no one else but him knew about, shut down mid sentence because the other party didn’t care about what he had to say. He’s used it it, at this point, but it still hurts.

“My point is that there is truth in myth.” Linhardt swallows through the lump in his throat. “Why did you go on this expedition then, if you’re so skeptical?”

Edelgard’s eyes darken a bit, so subtly Linhardt certainly would have missed it if he hadn’t been analyzing her. “My uncle is just as sold on this myth as you are. He asked me to do this for him.”

Linhardt furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “Your uncle asked you to risk your life for something you didn’t believe in?”

“Who said I didn’t believe in Nabatea’s existence?”

Before Linhardt can prod further, Edelgard is called away, leaving the scholar sitting on a rock next to a precariously pitched tent and more questions than he’d like.

* * *

The next morning -- or whatever the equivalent is -- sees the entire camp cleaned up in a matter of minutes. Linhardt is sent to the front of the caravan as their only tool to navigate what is sure to be an exhausting journey. Linhardt doesn’t usually like being in charge, especially not with such a heavy responsibility, but his desire to find Nabatea overrides any trepidation he might have been feeling.

No one questions his directions, which is a small win. The university where he worked was full of people questioning his research, doubting its credibility, and overall judging him for choosing such an “unproductive” area of study. Now, though, people looked to him for guidance, trusting him to read, translate, and not lead them to their deaths.

Linhardt thinks he almost prefers the judgement.

The hours blend together into what can only be days as they navigate the path. It’s damp, and cold, and sometimes they spend an estimated two or three days in one place before they can move on, because excuse you, translating takes time, and this word can either be “chasm” or “chest” and there’s a big difference between those two.

Time spent not translating was usually with Caspar, who had taken a liking to the rest of the mercenaries that accompanied them, so Linhardt somehow found himself with… friends? Truly, if he can remain friends with Caspar he can manage a few more acquaintances.

Bernadetta, the purple haired wisp of a girl he and Ferdinand had carried to the escape pods, was a nervous thing who kept herself isolated whenever possible, usually in her tent or the back of a truck. He found her the easiest to be around, simply because he could say he was being social without actually speaking, and the same held true for her. She would sketch idly in a notebook, and Linhart would read, and they could be alone together.

The others were not quite so willing to let him isolate. Dorothea, the brown haired woman, was a songstress before this. She didn’t elaborate on why she left that world behind, but the way she reacted whenever Ferdinand opened his mouth made him wonder if it had anything to do with men or nobles. Or noblemen. She did indeed have a lovely voice, and apparently could hold her own with a sword. She called him “Linnie,” a nickname he stopped trying to reject after the first dozen or so times she called him that.

Sylvain was a pain. A womanizer and a flirt, Linhardt didn’t interact much with him. He was mostly in charge of security, a job he didn’t particularly seem suited for but took to with pride all the same.

Ferdinand was an easy read; he was the kind of noble that Linhardt hated: prideful, vain, and  _ loud.  _ Pride doesn’t put food on the table. Glory? Even worse. Linhardt didn’t hate him for possessing all these fruitless motivations. It just made interacting with him significantly more exhausting. Ferdinand somehow discovered that Linhardt’s father was the Minister of Finance, and subsequently an aristocrat like himself, and would sometimes barge in while Linhardt was busy and lecture him on the responsibility of aristocrats to do somewhat and such other. Linhardt admittedly had run away from him on multiple occasions to avoid being caught up in such conversations, but there were only so many places to hide in a dark cave barely large enough to accommodate the expedition party.

Edelgard and Hubert remain enigmas. When not hounding him for coordinates or directions, they are almost always hiding away in Edelgard’s tent. He’d think they were sleeping together if he didn’t catch Hubert on multiple occasions looking not-so-subtly in Ferdinand’s direction. As it was, they would whisper things to each other that made little sense, hushing up quickly when someone approached. Linhardt probably wouldn’t concern himself with these deliberations were it not for the strange conversation he and Edelgard had by the lake.

They encounter no other beasts along the way, only insects and reptilian creatures that likely evolved from fish, a discovery that delayed the journey by at least a full 24-hour cycle while Linhardt attempted to capture and study one. It was likely thought by the ancient Nabateans that the Divine Beast would be able to stop any and all potential explorers, and that secondary or tertiary beasts would be moot. Some of the creatures depicted in Cihol’s Journal were not the kind Linhardt would like to meet, if the descriptions were correct.

Currently, they are camped out on a cliff edge, for once their torches doused. High above is quite possibly the largest collection of non-bestial creatures they had discovered so far; apparently the odd combination of a bee and firefly, they flitted about their hive high above, their numbers clustered so close together and shining so brightly they acted almost like an artificial sun.

Linhardt wouldn’t find out until later how accurate that description would be. One moment the camp was quiet, and then the room is flashing brighter than ever as the fireflies inside expand and stretch like a solar flare, expanding and swarming until the camp is burning.

It’s chaos as Edelgard and Hubert try to get everything under control. Caspar looks like he’s thinking twice about picking a fight with a swarm, and Sylvain, flashlight in hand, looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here. The explorers scramble to pack camp and race for the ancient bridge that leads across the chasm and deeper into the earth.

Linhardt begins to regret his decision to join this mission when the first cracks begin echoing through the chamber as the heavier machinery tries to cross the bridge first. He regrets it more when the stone beneath his feet gives way. And he thinks, as he and the rest of their adventuring party plunge into the dark chasm below, that maybe not all experiments are worth dying for.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on twitter @noblegambit


End file.
